On 1 April 2008 the statutory duty on all upper tier local authorities and Primary Care Trusts to produce a JSNA, as set out in the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, came into effect. This duty was first described in the Green Paper ‘Independence, Well-being and Choice’ and the White Paper ‘Our Health Our Care Our Say’.

The first brief guidance on JSNA came in the Commissioning Framework for Health and well-being in early 2007, and was followed up by more in depth guidance from the Department of Health in late 2007. The subsequent publication of World Class Commissioning and its 11 competencies reinforced key elements and direction JSNA should take.

The simple idea behind the JSNA is that all the key decision makers in a local area, including Directors of Public Health, Directors of Adult Social Services and Directors of Children’s Services must work together to produce a wide ranging needs assessment that includes with the whole population and which identifies the health and well-being needs and inequalities that exist within that population.

Further to this, because the JSNA should be signed up to by a wide range of local partners including the LAA, because it has strong legislation backing it, and because it is in principle so broad, the JSNA document should form the nucleus of a common understanding amongst key teams and partners across the locality of what the main health and well-being issues are for the different populations living in the area. This means therefore that JSNA provides a solid foundation for moving forwards together in a joined up and coordinated way.

This common understanding of the big issues facing the local area and its people that JSNA makes possible allows increased coordination by local agencies to address identified needs and reduce inequalities. This could mean anything from an informal coordination of strategies produced by different agencies based around the findings in the local JSNA all the way to full joint commissioning and working between these agencies according to the local context.